Tabitha
I close the garage door and enter the side
door into the kitchen. All the lights are off, so the
room is darker than it could have been. The days
are getting longer but there still isn’t enough
sunlight coming through the windows to help me
see well. I flip on the switch, and everything
looks the same as when I left.
“Kyle? Honey, I’m home!” I call out, hoping
to hear him yell back.
I listen carefully and hear nothing. The house
doesn’t even creak. I set my bag down on the
counter and walked out of the kitchen toward
the stairs in the back. I walk up to the second
floor and head toward our bedroom. Maybe he
went to take a shower? Walking into the
bedroom, I see that the lights are all off. The
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bathroom door is open and there’s no one
inside. I turn and head toward his office only to
see from the hall that the
lights are all off in
there as well. I head toward the front of the
house where the main stairwell is.
I reach the top of the stairs when I see him.
The light of the setting sun hits him just right,
and I see the noose around his neck. Kyle is
hanging from the highest beam on the ceiling. A
scream leaves my mouth as I rush down the
stairs to him.
“No, no, no Kyle!” I scream as I reach him.
I try to lift him up and feel his hand brush
against mine. Ice cold. He had been there long
enough for all the heat to leave his body. I sink
down to the floor, screaming his name over and
over. My chest feels like it’s collapsing in on
itself. I’m shaking and unable to breathe as I hear
someone pounding on the door.
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Chapter 2
“Tabitha? Tabitha, open the door!” I hear a
male yelling.
My mind is so clouded that I can’t think
straight. When I hear the front door open, I am
still shouting his name and rocking my body
back and forth. I hear someone gasp as a pair of
arms wrap around me. I cry and scream for Kyle
to wake up, but there’s nothing. He hangs there
slightly swaying. I hear a female voice
whispering in my ear to breathe. My only thought
was that I didn’t know I wasn’t.
“Yes, I need police and paramedics to 1513
Sipe road. There was a suicide. Yes. His wife
found him. No, she’s hysterical. Yes, we’ll stay
with her.”
“Tabs, honey it’s Brittany. I need you to
breathe for me, honey.”
I finally look up and see my neighbor’s face.
She gently takes my face in her hands and looks.
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Chapter 2
me over. She’s mimicking how to take slow, deep breaths and I follow her lead. My head clears,
and I look over to see her husband Mason
crouched down beside her. The look on his face
says it all. Kyle’s gone and I’m left all alone.
Sadness and pity fill both their eyes. Kyle and I had been neighbors with them for years. Kyle and Mason always played golf together and
Brittany and I hung out and did girls‘ nights.
They were our closest friends and for them to
have to see this is breaking my heart all over
again. They shouldn’t have to see their friend
this way.
“He… he. Why? Why did he do this?” I ask. A
look of heartbreak passes over Brittany’s face as
she looks at me.
“I don’t know, honey. All I know is that he’s
there, and he has a note pinned to his shirt that
says sorry.”
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Chapter 2
As she says that, I realize I never noticed the
note. She’s right, it only says one word, sorry. I
look at Mason and see him staring down at the
floor. It’s like he can’t bring himself to look at
- me. Or maybe it’s the fact that his best friend
died. Either way, I can’t seem to get my thoughts
in order about what to say or do. I hear a knock
on the door and Mason jumps up to answer.
Police and paramedics come into the house
as Brittany helps me up and leads me over to the
living room. She sits me on the sofa and heads
to the kitchen to get me some water. I sit in
place numb to everything that is going on
around me. I can’t get my head to wrap around
the fact that my husband killed himself. The man
who stood in front of the church and God,
promising to love and protect me, left me. And
he did it by his own choice.
A hurt so deep that it could cut through the center of the earth, cuts through me. He chose
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to leave me. There is nothing in this world that
could have been worth all that. We could have
worked through everything. But yet here I sit,
watching the men from the police and
paramedics take Kyle down from the noose that
he used to kill himself. What could have been so
bad that he couldn’t talk to me about it?
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